Beyond the boundaries of established science an avalanche of exotic ideas compete for our attention. Experts tell us that these ideas should not be permitted to take up the time of working scientists, and for the most part they are surely correct. But what about the gems in the rubble pile? By what ground-rules might we bring extraordinary new possibilities to light?

During the totality we came in the house to warm up some, and I thought maybe NASA would be running something on their channel, but no. Maybe the government shutdown prevented any coverage from the ISS or from the LRO LROC wide angle camera, but of course there is nothing. No updates yet for the astronaut photos from the ISS, who of course could see the Moon only through Earths atmosphere if it happened to be visible during the orbits. So, as usual, no proof that the Moon itself is even visible from outside of Earths atmosphere, and certainly no proof that the surface of the Moon was actually red or blue at any time during the eclipse.Here's a colour view of the Moon from Apollo 13 from fairly close range, just for a brightness comparison.

In order to change an existing paradigm you do not struggle to try and change the problematic model. You create a new model and make the old one obsolete. -Buckminster Fuller

Proof that the Apollo 8 astronauts could not see the Moon from cislunar space!At 33:17 in this video they show the Trans Lunar Injection of Apollo 8:https://youtu.be/1e2AnpbGLqw?t=1997Of course I can't prove the Moon was not visible if they has been facing it, but it is fact that the guidance and navigation computer could quickly orient the craft in any direction and that a camera mounted on the window bracket could be pointed very accurately at any target by the same navigation computer.

In order to change an existing paradigm you do not struggle to try and change the problematic model. You create a new model and make the old one obsolete. -Buckminster Fuller

Looks like no images of the recent eclipse will be available from the ISS. The recent astronaut photos have been updated but the dates jump from the 18th Jan to the 24th with nothing between those dates. I guess when you've seen one eclipse you've seen them all, boring.

An image from OSIRIS-REx, Bennu, Earth and Moon in one shot. This must have been a long exposure from the PolyCam, but no stars are visible.The image was apparently de-focused in order to make the Earth and Moon visible. Maybe the stars were too faint to detect when they did that?The MapCam should give us some great images though. Here is one from a prototype of the device:"An image of the Andromeda Gallaxy taken by a prototype of the MapCam"Of course the MapCam was being tested from Earth. Will we see similar images from space?

In order to change an existing paradigm you do not struggle to try and change the problematic model. You create a new model and make the old one obsolete. -Buckminster Fuller

The LORRI instrument CCD covers 300-1200nm with no filters so who can say if anything it sees is at visible wavelengths. The unit was used as a star tracker, so of course it can detect stars, but the science involved with these devices, both hardware and software is highly advanced and very complex, and much of the software classified. Uses things like sub-pixel spatial resolution interferometry with interlaced stitching, and the structure of the CCDs means they can also be used as gratings.

Ah, no wonder there were no images of the Jan 20 eclipse from the ISS. From the station activity blog:

Three-Day Look Ahead:

Saturday and Sunday 01/19-20: Crew Day Off

I guess the last thing they would want to do on a day off is look at another boring eclipse.

Here is a piece of ISS hardware that has no problem looking out into space.Examining neutron star emissions. Really?

NICER-The Neutron star Interior Composition Explorer Missionhttps://www.nasa.gov/nicerIts 'photos' can have exposures of up to 30 minutes or so, showing how stable a platform the ISS is. No budget though to put a Nikon D5 out there and do some astrophotography, too bad.

In order to change an existing paradigm you do not struggle to try and change the problematic model. You create a new model and make the old one obsolete. -Buckminster Fuller

I'm not sure how that's possible for the bright objects which appear to be behind Thule, and we are looking at the near dark side of Thule, so the local light (Sun) orientation is in front of the camera at about the 2o'clock position maybe. That's some seriously bright dust, and the reflection angle is all wrong I would think to shine that bright.

interstellar filaments conducted electricity having currents as high as 10 thousand billion amperes

I would also note, that the background lights move down and then back up. As if the camera is trying to track Thule as it enters the frame. Or maybe the frames we are seeing are form a much larger FOV image. What's left unsaid I think, is how far from Thule, and what was the velocity delta. Heck, what kind of orbital pattern or period is happening between this encounter and the previous picture? Is this the 2nd flyby?

Attached is a cheap line draw of one light pattern in the field of view. It doesn't show in my crop of the frame, but if you watch the gif move, it seems to go down 4oclock, then back up towards 2olock.

Attachments

A low res crop and line draw of a pattern of lights

interstellar filaments conducted electricity having currents as high as 10 thousand billion amperes

Cargo wrote:I'm not sure how that's possible for the bright objects which appear to be behind Thule, and we are looking at the near dark side of Thule, so the local light (Sun) orientation is in front of the camera at about the 2o'clock position maybe. That's some seriously bright dust, and the reflection angle is all wrong I would think to shine that bright.

They could be stars but there are some oddities;

1) Some only appear in one frame. A particularly bright spot appears near the bottom in the second last fame only. What happens to these stars in the other frames?2) The LORRI is fixed to the body so to track you need to rotate the whole craft. But why is the craft rotating right to left? It should rotate left to right to track Thule. Seems pretty stupid to increase the speed of Thule through the frame by rotating against it's passing motion.3) The exposure is 0.2 seconds. There seem to be far too many densely populated bright stars for photos only exposed for 0.2 seconds.

Also bear in mind this instrument picks infrared as well as visible wavelengths. Not sure what wavelength these images are.

Given the very narrow angle lens of LORRI and the speed the craft was moving at I am very impressed at the abilities of the technicians to capture anything at all, good work. As for what the new generation of 'cameras' is detecting. I don't think there is any info available that we could make sense of, they don't function anything like a consumer camera, which would have seen absolutely nothing out there, as would a pair of eyeballs.

Sadly but not unexpectedly there seems to be no further information about the Chang'e 4 lander or rover on the lunar far side, even on the Chinese sites. Surely they could have afforded to include a simple light meter among the experiments, I'm really interested to know just how bright the light is, but seeing as we don't even know the light levels on the near side, not surprising.

In order to change an existing paradigm you do not struggle to try and change the problematic model. You create a new model and make the old one obsolete. -Buckminster Fuller